Serendipity, luck, divine intervention -- call it what you will, but thanks to quick-thinking Vallejo hunters, a 72-year-old San Francisco man is safe at home this week after being lost in the wilderness for nearly three weeks.

On Saturday morning, the local deer hunters unwittingly found themselves at the center of Gene Penaflor's dramatic rescue in the Mendocino National Forest after one of them heard his calls for help in the bottom of a nearby canyon.

"One of the guys we were with went down (the mountain) a little too far," said 20-year-old Vallejo resident Ricardo Caro, a member of the "Bad Boy Squad" hunting group. "He accidentally found the missing man."

After getting word of the situation over his radio, Caro used his cell phone to call 911.

Reception was spotty, but search and rescue crews were able to use GPS coordinates to locate the group in the rugged, mountainous terrain about 160 north of the Bay Area.

Penaflor had been reported missing by his hunting partner on the morning of Sept. 25, according to the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office. An initial search was halted due to an incoming storm.

On Saturday, however, rescue teams had resumed the search when a sheriff's dispatcher received Caro's call.

Due to the difficult terrain, it took rescue teams several hours to make it to the hunters, who had already started to carry Penaflor up a steep hillside.

When the hunters first reached Penaflor -- who'd been missing since Sept. 24 -- he was weak and couldn't walk, Caro said. So the group made a makeshift stretcher out of their sweaters and a pair of tree branches to carry him to a clearing where rescuers could reach them. They also gave him some of their food.

"We were shocked," Caro said. "It was crazy how he was still alive after 19 days out there ... He said he thought he wouldn't have survived another 72 hours."

After a medical evaluation, Penaflor was airlifted to Ukiah Valley Medical Center for further treatment. He was released Sunday to his family.

Caro said Penaflor told them he hadn't eaten in three days. He said he'd killed squirrels and cooked algae from a nearby waterway to survive.

During the time he was missing, Penaflor faced freezing temperatures and occasional rain and snowfall.

At the hospital, Penaflor told authorities he'd traveled farther from the road than he'd planned, and at one point on the first day he fell and hit his head, knocking himself unconscious. He said he awoke in a thick fog bank, unaware of how long he'd been out.

Eventually, Penaflor stopped wandering and built a fire and warmed himself with leaves and grasses that he packed around his body. On days when it rained or snowed, he was able to crawl under a large log to stay dry.

Following the rescue, the sheriff's office thanked the group of hunters for going "above and beyond" in trying to locate the person calling for help.

"Their quick thinking to notify rescue teams and seek assistance while also rendering aid to Gene was critical to his being rescued and returned alive to his family," the sheriff's office said in a press release.

Caro said the group was stunned to find the man alive after so many days. He added that the group had heard about the search the previous weekend while in the area, but feared it was too late to help.

"God sent (one of us) over there," Caro said. "It feels good to have saved his life. He seems like a good man and we feel good to have found him.

"It feels good to send somebody home to his family who probably thought he was dead."